Tellman stopped for a few minutes, rubbed his eyes, tired of reading handwriting, relatively neat as it was. He was glad of a fresh cup of tea and a couple of biscuits.
Then he began on other reports, including financial ledgers. He had always been good at arithmetic. It had a kind of logic to it that he liked. There was a right and a wrong. It balanced itself. He was working on accounts of money from robberies, arrests, stolen-goods receipts. He checked the addition and found an error. He tried it again, and realized someone had read a five for an eight. Easy to do, especially when you were tired and had probably been working all day. A man could easily be too eager to go home to his family, a warm hearth, and a decent meal to check his sums. Not everyone found numbers easy.
Working on a little further, he found more, a seven mistaken for a one; threes, fives, and eights written carelessly and misread.
He went back to check all of them, and realized that in every case, the error resulted in a smaller sum. It only added up to a few pounds, but a pound was a lot of money. A few years ago, it had been a constable’s weekly pay.
He closed the ledger and sat back. Another thing he had noticed, much as he did not wish to: all the errors had happened when Sergeant Tierney was on duty.
What had happened to the money? Had it lined his pocket? Someone else’s that he owed? Bribes? Tellman hated the thought, but he would have to follow it up, sooner or later, whether it had anything to do with the bombing at Lancaster Gate or not. Who was paying whom? And why?
It left him with a sour taste, as if something clean and long loved had been soiled. Did it take him any closer to finding out who had planted the bomb? Possibly. More probably not.
He walked the last half mile or so home from the bus stop through the thickening fog. The only traffic was the occasional hansom cab going over the cobbles. He could hear the clatter of hooves and the hiss of wheels in the water before he could see the lights. It was a night any sane man was at home beside his own fire, not out turning over and over lies and stupidity in his mind and trying to find excuses he knew were worthless.
He saw the lights of the Dog and Duck tavern, golden yellow and warm. Someone opened the doors and came out, laughing and waving his hand toward someone inside. Tellman succumbed to temptation and went in. He was not ready to go home yet. However much he tried to pretend that everything was all right, Gracie would see right through it. She would know he had found something wrong. They were only small things, but like a piece of grit in the eye, they were painful, and unforgettable. And, like a sore eye, he kept rubbing at it.
He was chasing errors, repetitive petty theft. Yes-police corruption, but very minor.
He sat on one of the bar stools and ordered a pint. It was warm inside, and damp from too many warm bodies and from wet clothes steaming in the heat from the fire in the great hearth at the far side of the room. Now and then beer slopped over onto the straw-covered floor. Normally he did not like such places, but tonight it was good, perhaps because it was so very normal.
The barmaid brought Tellman’s beer and passed the time of day, but she could see his mood, and she did not pursue conversation. Tellman was glad of a small table out of the way where he could watch others but remain essentially alone.
He was troubled, afraid of what all these small errors might mean. If someone else were to look at Tellman’s work, would they find as much unaccounted for? He did not think so.
Did that make him a better policeman? Did details matter, or was he losing himself in them because it was a way to escape from the larger picture of violence, dishonesty, and waste?
He finished his ale and went to the bar and ordered more. The barmaid was a big woman, friendly, her shock of hair falling out of its pins as she strove to serve everyone. Not the kind of woman he found attractive at all. But this evening her warmth was welcome, her cheerful, meaningless chatter a good distraction.
He must find out more about Tierney, and the financial errors, although he strongly suspected that whatever petty carelessness he had committed, it was trivial. Grubby, of course, but of no consequence. It could have nothing to do with the bombing. It was just a small mistake that might never have been discovered if he were not looking for corruption.
What if he did not report these accounting anomalies to Pitt? What if he said there was nothing? Or was replaced by someone else, someone who would not expect police to be better than another man, above temptations of any sort? Someone who cared less. Maybe someone with a little less childlike idealism, who did not think of police as the guardians of law, of the vulnerable, whoever they were, gentleman or pauper.
When had that started? He thought back to being a boy, only briefly. There were too many things about it he preferred to forget. He was not that person anymore. He wasn’t hungry, scared, runny-nosed, scabby-kneed, always feeling on the outside. He was a grown man with a purpose. He had been that for years, ever since he had joined the police, part of an army for good, someone who belonged.
Now he was an inspector himself, a rank he would never have imagined reaching, even a few years ago. It was his duty to protect the police from attack-from inside or out. Without loyalty they lost their greatest shield, and weapon. And you could not expect loyalty from men to whom you would not give it. It was when it was costly that it counted.
And he owed it to Gracie and his little girl. And the new baby coming. That might be a son! Someone who would want to follow in his footsteps, be like him.
He stood up, leaving the last few inches of his ale, paid his bill, and walked out into the thickening mist.
Gracie was more aware of the gravity of the situation than Tellman knew. The next morning, after he had left for work, she left her child sleeping quietly in the early winter sun, in the care of the woman who came and did the heavy cleaning. She had several of her own children, and would know exactly what to do, or not do.
Gracie caught the omnibus to Russell Square, and then walked along to Keppel Street. Of course she did not know if Charlotte was in, but there was only one way to find out. She was sufficiently early to make it very likely. She needed advice, and there was no one else anywhere who would be wiser, or more generous, in giving it.
She was fortunate. Charlotte was still at home. She had planned to go out but changed her mind the minute Gracie had appeared.
“My errand is of no importance at all,” she assured Gracie. “You are an excellent excuse to avoid it. Come in and have a cup of tea.”
“It’s too early for elevenses,” Gracie said a little awkwardly. This was not really a social call. Her reason for coming was important, and urgent. Tea was a pleasantry that did not matter.
Charlotte looked at her gravely. “Something is wrong. What can I do?”
Instead of the kitchen where Gracie had worked all her years from thirteen to well over twenty, Charlotte led her into the parlor, and closed the door behind them.
“Sit down, and tell me,” she directed, then took the seat that was usually Pitt’s and offered her own to Gracie.
Gracie had been worrying about how to word it all the way here on the bus, but now suddenly it was easy. The years disappeared and it was as if they were back in the old days, when they had faced all kinds of cases together and Gracie had been part of the family, free to give her opinion like anyone else. Even Lord Narraway and Lady Vespasia had listened to her…sometimes.
“Samuel’s been looking at all these police what was hurt in the bombing,” she said earnestly. “He doesn’t tell me much, but I know ’im. He’s found bad things. I know that because ’e says nothing. If it was all right, he’d say so.” She looked down at her hands, which were very small, but very strong. “Samuel thinks the police are kind o’ heroes. Like King Arthur, all sworn to protect the innocent.” She sighed. “But yer gotta believe in something ter keep on going back all the time, an’ fighting against fear, an’ doubt an’…an’ just giving up. We all got our fairy stories. He’s a dreamer inside, you know. ’E thinks they’re all as straight as ’e is. But they in’t. I know that.”